Business group calls for more infrastructure investment

“Despite the current fiscal constraints the U.S. faces, we must ensure America has a world-class infrastructure,” McLernon said. “The U.S. subsidiaries of global companies have a strong interest in an efficient, modernized infrastructure to maintain their success in this country and enable them to continue as a source of American job creation into the future.”

The group’s report suggests using public-private partnerships to fund infrastructure projects and applying “best practices” from other countries that OFII says have lapped America in that area.

“America’s infrastructure crisis contrasts starkly with the dramatic infrastructure improvements being made in so many other countries,” the report says. “America today spends approximately 2 percent of (gross domestic product) on infrastructure. … This amount is down 50 percent from U.S. levels in the 1960s and it is low compared to many other major countries.”

The United States will be competing with countries that are spending big on infrastructure as it pulls itself out of the recession, noted Dartmouth College professor Matthew Slaughter, who wrote the OFII report.

“America’s recovery from the financial crisis and recession is very welcome, but it remains tenuous,” Slaughter said.  

“Rebuilding America’s infrastructure can play a role in not just creating American jobs but also boosting the productivity of American companies — which in turn supports rising incomes for workers and their families.”

The full report can be read here.